I am super-excited today to share the recipe of Kashmiri Rogan josh | Rogan gosht I experimented in my kitchen. If you search the Internet, you will find too many versions of the recipe. But I wanted to recreate something that’s as per the traditional kashmiri cuisine.
Before we proceed towards the recipe, let’s have a chitchat about the dish Kashmiri Rogan josh | Rogan gosht. It’s hailing from Persian or Kashmiri cuisine. Roughan means oil and Josh means to stew. So some people believe it’s a dish to be ‘stewed in oil’ or here, as understood the traditional recipe uses ghee. Hence, mutton is actually stewed in ghee or clarified butter. The term Rogan gosht seems to also be derived from the words Roghan meaning red and gosht means meat. Roghan josh was popular amongst the Mughals.
Now, traditionally Kashmiri Rogan josh | Rogan gosht has two different ways of cooking it. One is the way to add ginger, garlic and in some cases onion (as per Kashmiri Muslim recipe), another case would be to make it without using garlic and onion, as the Hindus prepare it. Now, since I was more fascinated by the idea of cooking Meat (mutton) without using garlic and onion ( probably my mom would react ‘what’! ), I picked up the traditional Hindu kashmiri version of Rogan josh.
Now, the Kashmiri Rogan josh | Rogan gosht is all the more tempting owing to the beautiful red color it generates. The red color comes from using Ratan jot. Since I could not get hold of Ratan jot ( which I am genuinely sad about ), I used alternatively a good amount of cayenne pepper and kashmiri mirch. Also, some recipes include saffron. So I used it too.
Also as the authentic Kashmiri Rogan josh | Rogan gosht recipe calls for using ghee or clarified butter, honestly I would differ here a bit. I cannot imagine to serve red meat and lots of ghee to my husband parallely. I used 1 tbsp of ghee and 1 tbsp of a good refined oil instead.
The authentic Kashmiri Rogan josh | Rogan gosht has to be slow cooked. In modern days, when people are short of time in their hand, it seems a luxury to slow cook mutton in a pot. Earlier I shared a recipe of mutton rezala that I cooked in 20 minutes in a pressure cooker. That’s how I cook, when I am careful about utilization of time and fuel. Pressure cooker recipes are too good in terms of saving time and fuel and in turn money. But as there’s a saying ‘slow but steady wins the race’, I would stick to the slow cooking method in a kadai or wok, today. May be that keeps an option open for me to come back to the recipe and try the same in a pressure cooker some day! Anyways, the slow cooking process indeed released lots of flavor to the dish and the aroma that was spread around – well it was just heavenly!
The Kashmiri Rogan josh | Rogan gosht in a gist is to be cooked by stewing the mutton in ghee or clarified butter along with aromatic spices and some heat producing spices as well. The red color is the signature Style of the dish. It had been always a pleasure to serve kashmiri dishes from my kitchen. I made kashmiri chicken, kashmiri mutanjan, kashmiri dum aloo. All the recipes are just awesome.
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Time required to cook Kashmiri Rogan josh | Rogan gosht along with marination: 2.5 hours
This Kashmiri Rogan josh | Rogan gosht serves 3 – 4 people
Ingredients of Kashmiri Rogan josh | Rogan gosht recipe:
- Mutton – 500 gms
- 1 tsp ginger paste
- 3 red chilly or cayenne pepper – paste
- Salt to taste
- 1.5 tsp of kashmiri Mirch
- 1/2 tsp fennel seed powder
- Whole spices – 1 black cardamom, 2 green cardamom, 5 cloves, 2 cinnamon sticks, 5 black peppercorns
- 2 tsp of ghee or clarified butter
- 1 tbsp of good refined oil
- 6 – 7 saffron strands
- 1/2 tsp asafetida or hing
- 1 cup of beaten curd
The Kashmiri Rogan josh | Rogan gosht recipe:
- Marinate mutton with salt, ginger and cayenne pepper paste, kashmiri mirch powder, fennel seed powder for 30 minutes at least
- Meanwhile take 1/2 cup of hot water and put strands of saffron in it and let it rest for 30 minutes
- To cook mutton now, heat oil in a wok. Let the whole spices like cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and black pepper splutter in it
- Add hing or asafetida
- Now add ghee or clarified butter in the wok and then drop the marinated mutton in the ghee and stir cook till oil starts to separate
- At this stage add beaten curd over slow flame and mix well
- After 2 – 3 minutes, add about 3 cups of hot water in the wok and cover it with lid. Let the mutton be cover cooked on slow flame. It takes about 1.5 hours to cook the mutton pieces thoroughly. Please note – I took small mutton pieces and hence it aided faster cooking. Stir occasionally though. Somewhere in the mid process add the saffron water as well
- Now, when mutton is cooked, switch off the flame and serve hot with steamed rice!
Enjoy the kashmiri wazwan with a plate full of aromatic, flavorful and extremely beautiful red colored kashmiri styled Kashmiri Rogan josh | Rogan gosht yourself too!